{"id":2931,"date":"2023-12-30T00:59:45","date_gmt":"2023-12-30T06:59:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/?p=2931"},"modified":"2023-12-31T16:20:32","modified_gmt":"2023-12-31T22:20:32","slug":"living-more-holy-in-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/2023\/12\/living-more-holy-in-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Living More Holy In 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\n

I\u2019ve recently started reading a book by Wendy Watson Nelson called \u201cWhat Would a Holy Woman Do?<\/a>\u201d. At the beginning of her book, she talks about inviting some friends to do an experiment. She asked them to take three days and choose one area to focus on living as a holy woman would and report back. It was so moving reading about their experiences that I decided that I would accept her challenge and spend the next three days trying to live a more holy life too.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trying To Live More Holy- Day 1<\/h2>\n \ \ 2024 can be a more holy year<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n \ On day one, I focused on eating and treating my body as a holy woman would. I have been sick for a month or so with awful stomach pains. I even threw up a few times. <\/span><\/p>\n \ It was on my mind to find out what had been causing these issues. And as I prayed to treat my body as a holy woman would, the Lord inspired me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \ That day I ate differently. I had small meals, and on a hunch I avoided dairy. I had eaten a lot of dairy before that day- with every meal, and a large glass of milk at bedtime. I already knew I had celiac disease, and I had heard some people with celiac can\u2019t eat dairy. <\/span><\/p>\n \ That is why I feel like the Lord inspired this experiment. That day was the first day in months that I felt good. My stomach pains were gone! After further experimentation, I have discovered I have a dairy allergy. And that day following the Lord\u2019s promptings was the beginning of renewed health.<\/span><\/p>\n \ Day 2- Family<\/h2>\n \ \ Family hand pile<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n \ On the second day I decided to focus on my family, and living as a holy woman would when interacting with them. I decided to eat meals as a family. And I listened more closely when my teenager talked to me. <\/span><\/p>\n \ Through the course of the day, the needs of my family became more clear to me. I entered difficult situations with a prayer in my heart for guidance. And I got it! My husband even commented that I had been nicer to him. I hadn\u2019t realized I\u2019d been cranky.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \ After seeing my family\u2019s needs with a clearer vision, I am making some changes in my life. We are going to eat at least one meal a day together. Hearing what was on everyone\u2019s minds meant so much to me. And I\u2019m going to be more patient, remembering to keep a prayer in my heart when things get hard.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \ Day 3- Chores Can Be Holy<\/h2>\n \ On the third day I focused on my home, and housekeeping as a holy woman. I hate doing dishes and laundry. I am sure that in Heaven there won\u2019t be dishes or laundry because it is such monotonous work. Even Harry Potter\u2019s world had a shortcut with their magic wands that eliminated the drudgery. So imagining myself doing these things in a holy way was a bit of a stretch. But I learned something beautiful.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \ \ A Tidy Kitchen- not mine, but it\u2019s pretty.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n \ When I had my mind focused on doing boring things in a holy way, they stopped being boring. I started to see the benefits of each chore. And I felt a difference in the feeling in my house and my heart. There are a lot of blessings in a clean house. <\/span><\/p>\n \ First, I realized that these chores are an act of love for my family. And second, when they are done, there is a feeling of peace and order in our home. The actual feeling of the rooms changed. Clutter was creating stress that I hadn\u2019t noticed before.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \ With the dishes and laundry all cleaned and put away, the clutter was gone. Knowing that potentially embarrassing things were not on the couches and counters gave me confidence when friends wanted to pop over for a visit. Even leaving the house and returning felt better.<\/span><\/p>\n \ Living A More Holy 2024<\/h2>\n \ I feel so blessed to have been given new insights and gifts as I spent three days trying to live in a more holy way. So as we approach 2024 I have decided that I want to make this a regular thing. In inviting the Lord to help me be more holy, He opened my eyes in every area I addressed. My life and my family are better for this seemingly simple experiment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \ If I were my ambitious teenage self I would decide today to live every day of 2024 as a holy woman. And in 100 years I know I will be ready for that level of commitment. But today I am going to be gentle with myself. It was quite a spiritual learning and growing experience with just the three days I worked on. I remember feeling spiritually out of breath for all I learned for several days afterward. So for now, I am going to choose three days every month to focus on a new area of my life to live as a Holy woman would.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \ I\u2019ll let you know how it goes. And if you feel brave, I\u2019d love it if you joined me. Remember this is not something to use to spiritually flog yourself. We are all learning and growing. So everything new we learn we simply change the future and don\u2019t regret the past. We do the best we can with what we know. And as we learn more, we gain a new perspective. That\u2019s something else I have learned in my journey to try to live a more holy life. God doesn\u2019t want us to dwell on our mistakes, just learn from them and do better.<\/span><\/p>\n \ May 2024 be full of new and wonderful learning experiences.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \ I\u2019ve recently started reading a book by Wendy Watson Nelson called \u201cWhat Would a Holy Woman Do?\u201d. At the beginning of her book, she talks about inviting some friends to do an experiment. She asked them to take three days and choose one area to focus on living as a holy woman would and report […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3521,"featured_media":2937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[174,264,267],"class_list":["post-2931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-about-life","tag-growth","tag-holy-woman","tag-motherhood"],"yoast_head":"\nLiving More Holy In 2024<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I\u2019ve recently started reading a book by Wendy Watson Nelson called \u201cWhat Would a Holy Woman Do?\u201d. 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So I want to be a support to those parents who are trying to figure out their child, and how best to support them. My wonderful son stretches me and helps me grow every day. I love being his mother and the things that make him unique. In 2020, every autism service stopped. So I got trained to be an RBT (Low-level autism therapist) with BehaviorUniversity.com. It has made homeschooling and doing at-home ABA easier as I understand my son better. They have some courses for parents to help them understand autism better, and I highly recommend them if you are searching. We have been home-schooling off and on for 6 years now. And it's wonderful to see my son thriving. Education and background Although my degree is not in education, I do have degrees from BYU Idaho and Southern Utah University in public relations, interpersonal communication, and marketing. I was lucky enough to get to teach a couple of freshman classes at SUU as part of my senior project. 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I took over editing LDS Blogs when our beloved editor Terri Bittner passed away suddenly from brain cancer in 2017. Then in 2020, LDSblogs.com stopped publishing after the pandemic affected their funding. But they are still online and some great stories are there if you are interested. I'm a lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I've been married for 23 years, and a mother for 15 years. I love people and creating in any capacity I can. I hope you'll join me as we navigate this crazy world we live in.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/author\/achristianson\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Living More Holy In 2024","description":"I\u2019ve recently started reading a book by Wendy Watson Nelson called \u201cWhat Would a Holy Woman Do?\u201d. 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I'm Abby Christianson, a transplanted Mormon living the dream. In my life, I've lived in seven different US states and visited other countries. And the thing that amazes me is that in every place I've been the LDS (Mormon) church is the same. The people have hearts of gold, and their love for the Savior is unchanging. But for some reason, people still think Mormons are weird, backward, and sometimes even Amish. I'm here to try to help clear up the misconceptions about Mormons by showing you that we are just like you. We love our families, eat junk food, love movies, and spend time with friends. And just like you, our faith and values go deep. So join me as I keep trying to scatter sunshine everywhere I go. And hopefully, you'll find your faith in Christ strengthened along the way. Autism and more I'm also here to talk about Autism, and being an Autism Mom. There were few resources online when my son was diagnosed. So I want to be a support to those parents who are trying to figure out their child, and how best to support them. My wonderful son stretches me and helps me grow every day. I love being his mother and the things that make him unique. In 2020, every autism service stopped. So I got trained to be an RBT (Low-level autism therapist) with BehaviorUniversity.com. It has made homeschooling and doing at-home ABA easier as I understand my son better. They have some courses for parents to help them understand autism better, and I highly recommend them if you are searching. We have been home-schooling off and on for 6 years now. And it's wonderful to see my son thriving. Education and background Although my degree is not in education, I do have degrees from BYU Idaho and Southern Utah University in public relations, interpersonal communication, and marketing. I was lucky enough to get to teach a couple of freshman classes at SUU as part of my senior project. I have the best memories of those times. And it showed me how much I love to teach. While at SUU I was on the debate team. I wasn\u2019t great, but I loved the team and the feeling of unity we had. As a member of the Lambda Delta Signa sorority, I spent a year as VP of my chapter. I served on Institute Council and in leadership with my choir. And I was a member of the Lambda Pi Eta honor society. Funny enough, I was nominated as SUU\u2019s personality of the year in my senior year because I was so involved When my son was small I was part of the PTA at bus school \u00a0I even served on the PTA board and taught art classes to the kids. \u00a0I also volunteered to help out in the cafeteria. And I was a \u2018recess duty\u2019 meaning I got to be outside as a responsible adult during recess I love to write and wrote for LDSblogs.com as Abby Christianson and as Patty Sampson for many years. I took over editing LDS Blogs when our beloved editor Terri Bittner passed away suddenly from brain cancer in 2017. Then in 2020, LDSblogs.com stopped publishing after the pandemic affected their funding. But they are still online and some great stories are there if you are interested. I'm a lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I've been married for 23 years, and a mother for 15 years. I love people and creating in any capacity I can. I hope you'll join me as we navigate this crazy world we live in.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/author\/achristianson\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}